My second MVP Summit took place in the week of March 23, 2026. Such a great event with all the MVPs from all around the world. In this blog post, I will show some highlights, pictures, and share information where it’s not NDA 😉
What’s the MVP Summit?
It’s an annual event for Microsoft MVPs to meet in person, attend sessions (with NDA content, so we can’t share anything from those with you), and have events like dinner with your platform or solution, etc. It’s hosted at the Microsoft Campus in Redmond, and there are MVPs there from all over the world!
Flying to Seattle
We, almost all of the MVPs from our Company (InSpark B.V.), flew on Sunday from Schiphol, Amsterdam, to Seattle. (Another MVP was already there, and one flew on Saturday). It was a 10,5 hour flight with no stops, long but watching movies made it ok 😉 (That and watching the soccer match between Feyenoord – Ajax on the internet connection of the plane, it wasn’t easy and dropped quite a few times).
Here’s our picture with the MVP colleagues and me on Schiphol 🙂
Pre-Day (Monday)
The day with sessions with your own group/category, picking up your badge, and meeting people. Did a tour on Campus, didn’t do that last year, with fun facts about the different buildings, etc. Had drinks at Tapster (Picture below, funny seating and tapping your own beers!) and dinner with colleagues and David from Recast, who took us to a great restaurant (Fogo De Chão)
First day and Azure Networking event
Tuesday was the first day of events and, unlike last year, I left more time in between sessions instead of fully planning the day 🙂 More hallway talks, more sightseeing, and I took a tour of the Microsoft Studios. Everything is NDA and no pictures during sessions, but we were allowed to take pictures there 🙂 It was so awesome, so much tech, and we got so many insights into the process of recording clips, videos, and how broadcasting works.
Last year, I took a picture with the Clippy chain that Dan Rey was wearing… Well… This year, I bumped into him again, and he said that I could keep Clippy to show it around the world and take it to Europe 🙂 So… Here he is 😀 Betsy Weber from Microsoft printed it on her 3D Printer, gave it to Dan Rey, and he passed it on to me!
At 18:00, it was time for the Azure networking event at the Flat Stick pub in Redmond: dinner, drinks, and fun. And… We got our new Azure jacket #Swag
Second day and Networking Mixer
After an early session, I had some time to print my MVP T-Shirt for this year #Swag
Relaxed morning; in the afternoon, I almost overplanned myself again, but I had some time in between sessions to walk around. At the end of the afternoon, we had dinner with all the MVP people.
Queueing 😀
Inside 🙂
Third day
Early session at eight again, and after that… We went on a tour of the Xbox Studio! Great for me, as a gamer, but no pictures… But we were allowed to take a small picture inside their sound testing room, which was so impressive… So silent, you could hear yourself thinking 🙂
The Master Chief was also there:
Afterwards, we had a PowerShell Ask Me Anything session, followed by a big session in the afternoon with Mark Russinovich. So impressive! After that, back to the hotel and took a walk to the shopping mall and had dinner with Sam Erde, Justin Grote, Stephen Valdinger, and… Two others (Not good at names, sorry 🙂 )
NWSCUG event
On Friday, I went to the Northwest System Center User Group event (https://nwscug.org/2026/02/25/nwscug-osdcloud-powershell-and-intune-suite-sponsored-by-recast/) David Segura invited me and why not, it’s in Seattle and it’s ten minutes from my hotel 😀
The sessions were:
Great sessions, and the location (Microsoft Technoloy Center in Belle Vue, 22nd floor) has such a great view!
After the event, there was a community dinner sponsored by Greg Ramsey of NWSCUG at John Howie Steak… Great restaurant, food, and fun!
Wrapping up
And that was my MVP Summit 2026 recap, in the hotel now, getting some sleep, and travelling back to Schiphol tomorrow afternoon. Probably suffering a small jetlag, but with a smile and happy to be part of this awesome and welcoming community! Have a lovely weekend!
Extra pictures
And some extra pictures from Saturday, going to the airport and having lunch/beers 😀
